Elvis Instamatic Worshipers

(MASKED MAN MURDERS MASKED MAN)

ORION VIDEO JUKEBOX

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(JIMMY ELLIS, WE'LL MISS YOU TENDER)

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THAT MIGHT BE BAD
ENOUGH HAD JIMMY ELLIS, THE PAWNBROKER, NOT ALSO SECRETLY BEEN THE
WORLD'S MOST BARELY FAMOUS MASKED IMPERSONATOR.

I WAS PRIVILEGED TO SEE

ORION IN A SMALL VOA
CLUB IN SOUTH LOUISIANA IN 1981, AND WHAT I SAW CAN NEVER BE
DESCRIBED, UNLESS YOU HAPPEN TO UNDERSTAND WOLF CALLS OR DOLPHIN
SQUEAKS.

SO...WITHOUT FURTHER ADIOS, I AM PROUD TO REPUBLISH A

POSTING ON THE GREAT'LONE RANGER OF ROCK 'N' ROLL', HIS DEATH, HIS LEGEND AND HIS NOT-SO-SECRET IDENTITY.

ALTHOUGH THIS MAY SEEM LIKE IRONY TO SOME (SOME ABOVE A DEMARCATION CALLED THE MASON-DIXON LINE),

THIS OCCUPATION,

APPARITION,

FACT,

THAT IS ORION,

IS AN IRONYLESS

AND WALKER PERCY-TYPE EVERYDAY

BENEFIT OF INHABITING THE SOUTHLANDS--AS COMMONPLACE AS BEING INSULTED BY A SHOPKEEPER IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD, OR EATING GOOD CHINESE FOOD, PERHAPS.

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR, LET'S GET TO GETTIN' WITH IT!O R I O N

"as long as they spell my name right publicity is okay I guess...

thank you, thank you very much".

*The History

of

ORION...

begins with invention anointed; a true Historasy that unrolls until its decisive end, or rather, its indentation.This is its lashed dissection. In
the city of harsh-hardeners with Titanic dreams, vacant or
heisted--Orion was anecdote, cued from emulators, ordinators,
Instamatic-worshipers... Orion was inalienable of Elvis' excess; his supernatural excrescence; his incorporeality--his America.

From
the Troy of music superstructures came the name Orion--and it
was Mammon's, in the loot of HIS velour blousing, muscles and SHOULDERS
retooled; in the foul, mean language of Elvis--that was Orion.

Top

Elvis

Impersonator

Killed

Gunned Down

in His

Alabama

Pawn Shop

Dec. 15, 1998

By Todd Venezuela

REVEILLE, Ala. (APB) --

One
of the world's most famous Elvis impersonators was killed when a robber
with a sawed-off shotgun stormed into a pawn shop he owned and blasted
him and his ex-wife at close range, authorities said.

Jimmy Ellis, who for years used his remarkably Elvis-like voice in a masked stage persona he called Orion, was standing before the display counter in his Jimmy's Pawn and Package Store just after noon Saturday when the gunman burst in and, in seconds, turned the quiet shop into a slaughterhouse.

"Mr. Ellis never had time to do nothing or say nothing," Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman Jr. told APB News. "He just opened fire in seconds and hit Mr. Ellis in the side."

After
the first blast, which left the 53-year-old Ellis mortally wounded and
crawling for safety, the gunman turned his weapon on the singer's
44-year-old ex-wife, Elaine Thompson, who was on a stool behind the
counter. He fired once into her face, killing her instantly and hitting
another worker, Helen King, in the hand.

Wounded victim shot at again..

The
gunman, who police believe is Plantersville resident Jeffery James Lee,
then fired twice more in an attempt to blast Ellis a second time as he
struggled to find a haven behind a computer desk,

Huffman said.

The
shot missed, and then Lee allegedly turned his attention to the cash
register, which he knocked off the counter after he could not open it,
Huffman said. He then dropped the gun, fled the store and drove off in a
car with two accomplices,

authorities said.

Huffman
said King, who played dead, was treated and released from a hospital
for her hand wound. Ellis died in his store about 10 minutes after the
attack, Huffman said.

Later that day, sheriff's deputies caught
up with the two alleged accomplices, Andre Darren Lee, 19, who is the
alleged gunman's brother, and Jerry Dewayne Johnson, 17, who is his
cousin. Police later found Lee holed up in a motel about 30 miles
outside Atlanta. All three are being held without bail and are facing
the possibility of the death penalty on two counts of capital murder,
authorities said.

Fans mourn star's death..

Word
quickly spread through this town about 20 minutes west of Selma that
one of its most popular residents was killed. Soon, Ellis fans around
the country were mourning.

"I was just devastated," said Kathy
Hoffman, a Maryland woman who is the president of the Jimmy Ellis fan
club. "It's just a very sad thing. He was just the sweetest guy."

Ellis'
career took off after Elvis Presley's death in the late 1970s when
producers at Presley's former record label, Sun Records, discovered that
his voice sounded hauntingly like the King's.

They suggested
that he don a mask and perform under the name "Orion," doing a mix of
old Presley standard and his own work. He stood out among the many Elvis
impersonators partly because of his voice and partly because he only
performed as Orion, never claiming publicly to be copying Elvis.

Broke from Presley image..

He enjoyed several years of popularity and worked with many of the top performers in Nashville such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Loretta Lynn.
According to Hoffman, his fan club once numbered in the thousands.
However, in the mid-1980s, the novelty of his act wore off, and he
removed his mask in an attempt to be taken more seriously.

It
wasn't an easy move for the Orrville native. In a 1997 interview, he
said that his attempt to be a star in his own right was stifled by his
voice's natural likeness to Presley. "It's been both a blessing and a
curse," he said. "The Nashville establishment won't accept anyone who
sounds that close to Presley."

In the '90s he went back to his Orion persona and played the U.S. earlier this year. He also stayed closed to his core fans.

"He
was a friend," Hoffman said. "He was a very easygoing person. His
career was important to him, and he was sometimes discouraged because he
had so many ups and downs."